It’s All in Your Head | Levi Lusko

well hello echo church it is such a privilege and a joy to be with you thank you for having me i have the hugest appreciation for your pastors and what god is doing we love the bay area my wife grew up was born and raised in monterey california and so many times we have flown into and out of san jose because how many of you know that monterey airport is not for real so we land in san jose we go to in and out we stop by trader joe's and we just love the area love the region and i love that clearly god loves the bay area god loves silicon valley so much that he positioned you right there in the midst of it to make the impact that you are having across your four campuses your online ministry uh i'll never forget meeting your pastor pastor andy uh at elevation we were both at an event there and had some time to spend backstage and talking together and have just from that moment forward admired and watched from across the country the way he and stacy lead in the home with their beautiful family and then of course the vision and the strength and the forcefulness but also the kindness that he demonstrates leading you every single day and i just believe that god has so much for you in the coming days as you impact a region that really does have an impact on the world and so it's a privilege to have a chance to speak to you today and if you have a bible we're going to be in second corinthians chapter 10 find your pen find something to take some notes on and i want to preach to you on the subject of winning the war that rages on the inside if you'd like to take notes the title for this message is it's all in your head it's all in your head i i find myself saying that a lot saying that phrase a lot it's all in your head i say that to my dad sometimes because my dad is a classic hypochondriac is there anybody else can relate to a family member who needs to be banned from webmd just absolutely should not be allowed near it i remember the day that i call i love my dad so much but i called my dad and said dad how's it going he said leave i knocked so good turns out i have arthritis and i'm like arthritis that is terrible and he said i won't be able to do this i won't be able to do this and i was like dad that's that's really a bummer that is such a that is such a tragedy and i said did the doctor tell it to you was the result of a study and he he admitted that he hadn't been to a doctor it was just his self-diagnosed prognosis he had arthritis uh this this happens all the time and i'm always constantly harassing him a little bit because of the way that he'll he'll just tend to assume the worst about a situation or that this he must have this or it must be that and and uh but he he he says he's going to get his revenge because he's already decided what's going to be on his tombstone he told me his tombstone is going to say his name and then it's going to say i told you i was sick under it and his vengeance is going to be that nobody believed him so i'm always telling dad it's all in your telling your state with me ted i say to my daughter clover my daughter clover who is nine years old and amazing and a joy uh to be around but she has some irrational fears she's terrified of floods we don't live in a flood plain you guys we don't get floods in montana it just doesn't happen there's too many mountains and ravines and lakes and there's too much uh there's too many places for the water to go but she is just very very very concerned about floods she went through a serious phase where she was terrified of witches and i just said i don't think that's a a real thing you need to be scared about honey it's just all say it with me it's all honey it's in your head i find myself saying that to my my daughter who's 15 and playing high school tennis and talking to her about how so much of what she faces when she plays the games it's not necessarily just the physical aspects of it but there's the the aspect of it that she has to get right and it's right here you got to be mentally strong the way it uh it takes strength of mind to come back from a game that you've lost or to serve well after you've double faulted so much of the the game of tennis and and really the game of life does come down to the mental game honey i say to her it's all in your head so i'm saying that to my dad i'm saying that to my daughters and sometimes saying that to to my wife and so of course it was with great irony that uh one of the most loud and clear messages god ever gave to me was when he said to me levi so much of what you're going through so so much of what you're facing it's all in your head and i want to talk to you today about the power for winning the war within that comes through thinking right thinking right so you can live right second corinthians chapter 10 paul's speaking i'm reading out of the new king james version for though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in god for pulling down strongholds casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of god bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of christ and jesus i pray that you would speak a word to us today we need to hear from you and we thank you for your word and even the reading the public reading of your word to to be gathered across our locations and in online opportunities and streams and podcasts but to to to to gather our hearts united in reverence for your word we believe your spirit can and will change things in our lives and we we know that so much needs to be changed in the world and we pray that you would help us to see that if you can sort things out in our minds you will bring about a very different picture of what's possible in our lives so i pray your blessing on this church and the leaders and the team and the staff and every single person who is all in on this vision for people to say yes to christ and to walk in that life that will flow out of that we ask that you would do something today that we can't control or take any credit for but that it's a glorious work of your spirit we ask this in jesus name amen my wife and i were sitting on the beach and we were watching our kids play building sand castles it was one of our yearly times of vacation which i'm so serious about because it's so life-giving to to cease from working and to cease from preaching and to cease from creating to cease from doing all the things that that we do in our normal lives and i love that god has every single week given us the permission and the chance and the opportunity and in fact the commandment to take a rest to take a breath to work six days and then to take that seventh day and to enjoy the thing that he created on the seventh day and that is rest it's such a beautiful thought and it's been said by jewish rabbis that the reason god says in the ten commandments that if you don't if you don't take that day and honor him if you don't remember him in that sabbath it's gonna lead to conclusions that are embedded right there within the command he says you're to take the seventh day and remember it as a sabbath sabbath day that's holy you're to it let your animals enjoy it and even to let the stranger that is with you enjoy it and the way the rabbis see it is that if you don't take that seventh day eventually you're gonna feel like an animal and then you're eventually going to feel like a stranger in your own life and it's an act of faith especially if you're type a especially if you're driven especially if you like me tend to link your identity and your productivity at times is hard work to take that rest but i've learned the power of it and the way that it is in fact an act of worship and surrender and eventually you get better at it so not only that day a week but also to take sabbath breaks to take uh vacations to take holidays and in those seasons to delight in the the work that god has allowed you to do that year and to reconnect with yourself to reconnect with him to reconnect with your family and pro tip what helps me is taking social media off my phone turning email off and and really working hard ahead of time so that those times of rest are actually replenishing and and life-giving and i love to buy paperback books i'm a big fan of books and so i go with my family to you know the barnes noble and we'll pick out some books and i'm going to read through those on this on this holiday and while watching my kids play in the sand and my wife's right there beside me um you know and of course i'm processing it through the rear view mirror of like how idyllic the scene is my wife would probably tell you like there was three fights the kids got in that day and someone got sand in their bathing suit and it was a massive problem we forgot the sunscreen and someone's sandwich fell on the beach and then a seagull aided it but but it might allow me the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia this was the most beautiful day that's ever been had and i'm reading my book and anyhow it was a biography on theodore roosevelt and i have long you know loved history but realized standing there in the biography section that i didn't know as much about theodore roosevelt as i would like to in fact the only real thing i knew about him is that at some point he was the president and that he was played by robin williams in the night at the museum those are the two things that i knew about theodore roosevelt and so i was like i really need to bone up on this this this cat because he's on mount rushmore so obviously he's he's significant and so i'm reading this book by edmond morris who's actually a trilogy of books and daunting but rewarding and and and i'm sitting there and this is when god just spoke to me so clearly and i'm reading about the spanish-american war which he volunteered to go and i won't you know bore you with all the amazing things about theodore that i came across but this in particular was fantastic because you know this is a guy who did great things and uh and and was you know given the medal of honor and the nobel prize and just some phenomenal accomplishments supervise the building and opening of the panama canal first president to ever leave the office first president to ever be submerged in a submarine or to own an automobile or to have a phone in his home and and also the first president to ever entertain an african-american for dinner in the white house booker t washington he invited over some incredible things uh of course not a perfect man as nobody that we're going to find in history or in present times uh is but but but this moment in the spanish-american war where he volunteered to go to cuba and lead this band that he called the rough riders onto the battlefield and it was this moment that really stirred me because he didn't have to be there he chose to go he chose to fight and he had his entire life seen himself his mental model of himself was that he was a soldier and so there he is and he wanted it forever and now here's the real thing there are bullets shooting down from above san juan hill kettle hill and he's urging his men on and he got to a moment where he described a piece of barbed wire fence that had fallen down on the ground in front of him and he realized if he crossed this barbed wire fence he was committed and there would be no surrender you would either take the hill or or die trying and it was kind of one of those moments where time froze and as he fixated on this barbed wire fence he realized it represented this rubicon moment for him this watershed moment this before and after moment because he wanted to be a soldier but now here he was and if he crossed this thing he was committing to battle and there in cuba teddy roosevelt changed into the man that we know him as today as he chose to cross that barbed wire and in so doing commit himself fully and absolutely to the war that was in front of him and when he did something changed his men his men said as he crossed the barbed wire fence he became a man possessed one person to his deathbed said i'll never forget the sight of of teddy crossing the barbed wire because as he did he became the most glorious soldier i have ever seen and for the rest of teddy's life he would refer back to that moment july 1st 1898 as the single greatest day of his existence because in that moment something happened he would later describe it in his journals as the moment when the power of a wolf rose up in his heart to howl ladies and gentlemen that is why he got to become president because a hundred years from now they will read through my journals and they will read about the spin class i went to and the green smoothie i ate and the fish that i tried to catch they're not gonna find that that was the moment when the power of a wolf rose up in my heart are you kidding me but i love it because it was it was a moment when he didn't know if he had what it took to go forward but when he chose to absolutely burn the ships and just give himself over to this moment that's when he found there to be a corresponding power and as i was reading that i felt the holy spirit so clearly tell me there were some areas that i've been hiding back from there were some barbed wire fences in my life that i've been hanging back from and i needed to give myself over to those fights over to those battles that more than any other thing came down to what is in my mind to how i think i submit to you that to a large degree the outcome of your life is not going to be determined by the things that happen to you but rather by how you think about the things that happen to you a lot of us are tempted to think that if i haven't done something if i haven't been able to make it this this far do this thing or whatever we let ourselves off on the account of the difficulty and i'm not saying you haven't gone through difficult things and maybe you've gone through far worse than i have but i would submit to you that you could probably find someone else who has gone through the exact same thing you have only it for them propelled them into the great achievement and to the great accomplishment and it wasn't used as an excuse it wasn't used as a as an occasion to make them a victim but instead he became the catalyst for so many of the wonderful things so it's not what you face in life it's how you think about what you face in this life and that journey that moment sitting on the beach reading about barboir propelled me into a journey propelled me into a season of giving myself over to some battles that i had been hoping would go away on their own but to fully committing myself to war fully committing myself to to a declaration of war against the version of me that i don't want to be because so much of the conflict in our lives so much of the difficulty in our lives does come down to the battles that we face on the inside the battles that we face in our minds james chapter 4 verse 1 puts it this way where do all the quarrels and fights come from that are among you i love this question what is causing the quarrels and fights among you if your marriage has quarrels and fights if your uh social life has quarrels if your social media has it does have quarrels and fights right where do these quarrels and fights come from that are among you james answers this question don't forget this is the brother of jesus that's talking gives a little extra weight to anything he has to say in my opinion he says because he was jesus brother meaning he had reason to know if the whole thing was a false the whole thing was not true but the fact that he followed his own brother what would it take for you to follow your your brother and call him lord a resurrection from the dead at the very least right and james did follow jesus and live his life and and lost his life following his brother he says what is causing the quarrels and fights among you don't they come from the evil desires at war within you and this is where god began to speak to me about so much of the things that i don't like in my life out here that i'm tempted to blame well it's got to be my wife's fault it's gotta be my dad's fault it's gotta be that my staff's fault it's gotta be this situation's fault no no he says the quarrels and fights among you come from the evil desires lurking within you it's not what you face it's how you think about what you face and so we must come to a place of realizing i am capable you are capable of being your own worst enemy i am my own worst enemy yes the devil is real and he's a punk for sure yes the world is full of problems and persecution and yes other people have their own issues but until i own up to the fact that i often get in my own way i will always remain on this side of the barbed wire fence instead of rising up into all that jesus christ laid hold of me for what i'm trying to say is that you can't be a victor and a victim at the same time and god has called you to be a victor god has called you to rise up and overcome paul the apostle realized this when he said in romans chapter 7 why do i not do what i want to do why do i do why do i why do i do the things that i'm constantly not wanting to do and he finally realized and owned up to the fact and i love how the passion translation puts it i'm a mystery to myself romans 7 15 because what i want to do is right but i end up doing what my moral instincts condemn he was essentially when he finally said i'm a wretched man that i am he was saying oh i'm the one holding me back it's not someone else's fault it's not this other person is it's not the difficulties that i've been through it's my own self i'm in my own way he was saying oh it's all in your head and i want to just take a few moments the time that remains today to give you some of the principles and like i said this is deeply personal for me this isn't just a message that i wrote it's a it's a story that i've been entrusted to carry and it's my own story of battles that i've given myself over to and watch victory come by not pretending something's not there by owning up to it and if you want to read more then i can cover in the few minutes of this time that remains i've distilled these things into a book called i declare war four keys to winning the battle with yourself and it has by god's grace gone out into the world in multiple languages and god's used it in in great ways i think in large part because it's it's authentic it's real it's from scripture and it's rooted in my own oftentimes difficult experiences that i've walked through and then we're also very excited because we've taken some of these same things and distilled it for those who are intimidated by a book which let's let's face it it's hard to pick up a book and read it from cover to cover so i also took it and put into a 40-day devotional so you can go through these principles in a little bit less daunting of a format it's got a little ribbon so you can keep your place and it has prayers and little little little moments where you can breathe and and and think for a little bit and and i hope that all these things if they uh are beneficial will encourage you maybe go through in a small group or or some other way maybe with your spouse it could be super cool so i declare war and take back your life learning how to how to live right by choosing to think right these are are there and uh what i'm trying to say is the chimichangas are on aisle 17 and this is the sample on a toothpick but let me just give you a couple as we begin to wind this down this declaration of war kind of a life that god has for us experience that experiencing that that power over of a wolf rising by giving yourself over uh to become that victor and not allow yourself to remain the victim the first is is you've got to mind your head always be mindful of what's going on in your head that's how the british people say watch your head that's how we would say in america watch your head like under that low doorway in in great britain they would say mind your head but it's actually better because you can't watch your head because your eyes are mounted on your head but you can be mindful of your head and that's i think the gist of what paul was saying in second corinthians 10. he was saying as we fight our battles we don't fight the way the world fights them because we have to realize so much is going on spiritually inside in our minds proverbs 23 verse 7 says for as a man thinks in his heart so he is you are literally what you think and so what do we do when we're minding our head we're always being aware of the high ground the high grounds what paul said i take down strongholds i take these things down these arguments that raise themselves up against the truth now the corinthians would have been gobbling that up because they understood the power of a stronghold to control a city the city of corinth had itself a 1800 foot tall tower in the midst of the city and historically speaking whoever controlled that tower controlled the city of corinth because once you have the high ground you can shoot down from above it's an elevated position and that they understood yep who runs corinth's tower runs corinth so paul says hey there's a corinth tower inside your life and it's called your thought life and you will never be able to live right if you are thinking wrong and that is why from the beginning to the end of the bible such a an emphasis is put on how we think on what we think on what we allow into our minds i like how paul puts it in colossians chapter 3 he says set your mind on things that are above take control of that tower make sure you're in charge of the highest ground in your life and that is your thought life i travel sometimes and when i travel one of the things i have to always do is grab my watch and pull this bezel out and change the the time because i'm in a new place and i have to change my time to correspond with where i'm at well the bible says when you were saved your citizenship was transferred to heaven you're no longer a citizen of this earth your citizenship is in heaven which eventually i know it's complicated is going to come back down to this earth but the point is you're not from around here anymore we live here on mission but we're supposed to be strangers and sojourners that we're supposed to see ourselves as resident aliens we live in this world system but we're not of it we have a different king we have a different value system and that's why some of the things that we do like tithing and gathering together as the church on the first day of the week prioritizing a night in our schedule for small groups but with travel soccer and with this commitment and that over here yes we're saying as for me and my house we will serve the lord our citizenship is in heaven so the way we think about things is going to be different than it would if we lived here we're constantly having to set our minds to heaven's frequency second thing jot this down you need to learn the power of using your words these thoughts that pop up in our minds they often times are influenced by our self-dialogue the way that we think and the way that we allow ourselves to get grooved into forms of thinking and habitual patterns of thinking and these things over time get hardened into strongholds kind of like a car when the alignment's off the steering's off you can't take your hands off the wheel because there's a pull to this direction a pull to that direction over time this can and it can be nature it can be nurture there's spiritual aspects to it for sure but eventually there can be a constant pull towards this proclivity a constant pull over here these are these strongholds these patterns of thinking that become ingrained and apart a big part i believe of how we tear these things down is we use our words your mouth is on your head and god says it's all in your head it's not just how you think it's also how you speak proverbs 18 verse 21 says your words kill or they can give life they become either poison or fruit and then god says you choose you choose you know the bible has a lot to say about hell hell is as a destination and i think to to read about hell to think about hell should cause our hearts to break because none of us rejoice or or have any excitement at the thought of anybody going to hell certainly god being first on that list of someone who wants no one to go to hell he doesn't delight in the death of the wicked and yet we don't shrink back from acknowledging that what the bible does teach and that eventually like c.s lewis said in the end there are only two kinds of people those who say to god thy will be done and those who at the at the last day god says thy will be done and and so we we don't shrink back from it and and so hell is real but what i've realized is that hell is not just a coming destination for those who want nothing to do with god and so in the end he finally gives themself over to their own desires fully hell is also what we can create in our lives while we live before eternity while we speak with our mouths in fact james was the one who said that when our words become poisonous and inflamed and they're not helping people they in fact are set our words our tongue gets set on on fire by the flames of hell the point is your life can become one you love or one you loathe and it all comes down to the words that you speak god wants you can i say something that's a little controversial to get the hell out of your words god wants you to get the hell out of your mouth god wants you to get the hell out of your tongue every time you speak that's death every time you speak critically every time you speak words that are mean and are not helpful that's hell lighting your words on fire and those things can create a little miniature hell in this life and in this world for other people for sure but also for you because did you know that you don't talk to anybody as much as you talk to yourself the majority of our words are directed at our own selves and so often if you're like me they become negative i at times be can become so overly critical of myself i'll be frustrated driving or be angry at a low moment i didn't handle that conversation while this didn't go so well and so then it's just like you idiot how why'd you do that again this is your story of your life and and so easily i revert into this negative form of speaking what that means though is that if we take control of the the polarity of our words like like a battery i was hooking up my battery on on my boat had to be careful to put minus positive i'm positive because i've been there done that lit my garage on fire nearly by getting that wrong well listen when you're speaking you have to ask yourself the question do you have positive on positive negative on negative is the word that you're about to speak to yourself is the word that you're about to tweet is the word that you're about to come out of your life is it positive or is it negative is it going to build up or is it going to kill jesus said that your tongue can move mountains what an incredible thought what's the strongest muscle in your body not your biceps it's not your quadriceps not even your heart which is so strong it's your tongue the tongue is the only thing jesus said that can move a mountain the muscle think of it that can move mountains and whether it moves mountains out of the way or in your way is entirely up to you and comes down entirely to whether you use those words to unlock blessing to unlock possibility to speak life to speak faith to build yourself up to say to yourself like david did why you cast down on my soul why are you so disquieted within me hope in god trust in god when i use my words instead of saying what kind of a dad are you you're a terrible pastor levi what what makes you think anyone should listen to you but instead to say hey how much god loves you how much god cares for you you have the spirit to raise christ from the dead go go say you're sorry come on go try it again get back in there walk in there say the heart i'm telling you it's so much better to be your own coach than it is to be a critic so mind your head use your words and then keep showing up write that down keep showing up i'm reminded of wd-40 this amazing product that's in every one of our garages wd-40 is is this beautiful thing if there's a squeak yo i'll solve it check out the hook while the dj revolves it right but there's some stuff you shouldn't use it on you you you know places where people are sleeping ventilations you know but i i love wd-40 my my my my hinges are squeaking bang wd-40 that thing and one of the favorite parts of this book uh take back your life is where i talk about the origin story of wd-40 and i won't go into all of it now but the bottom line is that the name reveals the power of tenacity that is unleashed when you simply keep showing up even and especially when you fail because when we start to realize okay it's all in my head gotta win this war gotta cross that barbara there's gonna be days when you go to get a toe over it and then you run back to the ship i'm telling you there's gonna be some times when when you try and you fail and you shift back into that stinking thinking and that rotten feeling and you you get back into that narcissistic mode where you're all fear of missing out and why why wasn't i invited and you start to shift back into that inward thinking that version of you that you don't want to be starts to win and the the tower at corinth gets taken over by the barbarians again and in those moments you're going to think well gosh i tried and failed that didn't work for me i tried and it didn't work but you got to remember you got to keep showing up wd-40 the name comes from the attempts it took to get the formula right and the chemist norm larson he went through version after version after version after version after version and he didn't successfully displace water wd water displacement formula perfected on the 40th attempt how many chemists would give up after 20 failures 25 failures i mean different formulas going back to the drawing board drawing on the you know this isn't it this isn't it he kept going 25 27 32 35 30. he finally perfected on the 40th attempt i love that because basically he's admitting to the world i failed 39 times i failed 39 times and you taking back your life you winning this war within it might take you more attempts than even that but i want to encourage you like woody allen said success in life 80 of it might just be show up come on just keep showing up no matter how many times you fail no matter how many times it goes wrong remember you didn't go to church for us to write don't walk back back in going i haven't been around here for a while okay keep showing up come on show back up for for your marriage show back up in your relationship show back up in your walk with god most importantly number four carry a big stick yes and yes we're gratuitously quoting teddy roosevelt here he had some great things he said in his life like he he's the one who said comparison is the thief of joy that's a great quote and i love that that he did give us the power of a wolf rising in our heart but but i do love his domestic policy his foreign policy rather the speaking softly and carrying a big stick and i like both of those and we've talked some about speaking softly to yourself but never forget the big stick that god has given to you and what big stick am i talking about ladies and gentlemen i am talking about the cross the biggest stick of them all and that in our failures in our difficulties in the hard things that we face that we must again and again and again and again go to the power of the cross and remember that our standing before god does not have anything to do with how we're doing on a given day at winning the war within it does not have anything god doesn't look at us and base how he feels that we're doing based on how things are going and to remember the cross to remember that when god sees us he only ever sees the righteousness of his son and that will give us the power and the strength to keep showing up for this battle that we're facing remembering that he sees us only through the lens of good friday you might be feeling like you're having a case of the mondays in your walk with god or sometimes feeling the hump day of a wednesday but on god's calendar he only ever sees friday friday friday friday friday you perpetually are covered with the righteousness of jesus that was secured for you at the cross my wife were at a boxing class in miami once and the instructor kept saying jab jab jab jab and then she said she was saying but now it's time to cross the right the right cross this punch that's just more more strong than the jab and so she was teaching us jab jab jab jab then she wanted to see us load up and from the hips wanted to see us really go with the right cross and then she said something that reverberated into my heart that day she said remember the jab keeps them busy but the cross is your power and i love that because all these things you're how you're thinking and this you're going to speak and this you're going to try and that's all great the jab keeps them busy there's a time and a place for all those little things that we're supposed to do but but echo church never forget the cross is your power and so father we pray for the blessing and the traction and the strength and stability that's going to come through the firm foundation that we are set on when we live every day out of the power of the cross when we live every day remembering the good news that we are no longer at war with god we're no longer how many of the ten commandments we've kept or how many days our streak on you version is or or in our ministry what we're able to accomplish or what our standing is on social media none of those things determine our identity our identity comes as blood bought sons and daughters of the king purchased forever by the blood that ran down from the cross and the power of the resurrection so i pray that strength upon each of these here today in jesus name amen thank you again so much for joining us today we hope that you found this helpful and if you did be sure to like comment and subscribe to stay updated on the latest content that we have for you also we are dependent on the financial contributions of others to support and sustain our ministry so be sure to go to echo.church.give if you feel led to participate so that we can continue making an impact together thank you so much again and we'll see you next time

Channel: Echo.Church

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Id: F076khqWeI0

Length: 35min 39sec (2139 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 04 2021